Congo: Train Crash

Two trains collided today in the Congo Republic, killing around 50 people and injuring
about 100 others. The accident happened on a rail line that recently reopened after
rebels damaged tracks along the railroad two years ago. The cause of the accident is
still under investigation.

Answers

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - At least 50 people were killed, many of them
burned to death, when two trains collided on the recently reopened
railway line
between the Congo Republic capital Brazzaville and the sea, state
radio said on
Thursday.

The radio said rescuers continued to hunt through the wreck at the
station at
Mvougounti, around 45 miles east of the port city of Pointe-Noire,
where the
trains collided on Wednesday.

Many of the casualties died from burns after fuel being transported
by
passengers caught fire in the crash, the radio said. At least 100
people were
injured and taken to hospitals in Pointe-Noire and the central town
of Dolisie.

Officials from Pointe-Noire had already been sent to begin an inquiry
at
Mvougounti, which was the site of Congo's worst rail accident in 1992
when
112 people died after a similar collision.

Freight traffic on the line resumed after a break of two years in
August 2000
following repairs to track and rolling stock damaged by rebels who
had
remained active after the end of a 1997 civil war in the central
African
country.

A peace deal was signed at the end of 1999, allowing repairs to go
ahead with
the help of engineers from France's SNCF state railway.

The reopening of the line was marked by a special mass intended to
bless the
railway and exorcise evil spirits, and the first designated passenger
train in
more than two years traveled the full length of the line last week.

People had continued to use freight trains to travel since a lack of
coaches
meant a regular passenger service could not be provided.

Railway officials in Brazzaville said people were in the habit of
riding on the
dangerous open wagons that carry timber down to the coast and return
empty
to the capital.

The railway is the main link between Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire,
which is the
country's main port and the center of Congo's oil industry.

``It's terrible that this accident should come just after the railway
had started
working again,'' said one railway official in Brazzaville, who could
give no
further details of the collision.